Anamorphic vs. wide angle

Z

zureyfa

Member
Hi ,

It may be a silly question but what i really did not find the difference between anamorphic adapter and wide angle lens.

What i already know;
panasonic anamorphic adapter can get %33 more view.
Any wide angle lens (for example century optics .6 wide angle lens) you can get %40 more view.

But my question is why panasonic anamorphic adapter is called 16:9 adapter instead of wide angle lens?

Or same question but in different perspective.

can any wide angle lens with the same (%33) factor can be used as 16:9 adapter?

regards,

ergin
 
no, pana's lens compresses the image horizontally to fit a 16:9 wide screen image into the DVX's 4:3 chips without any loss of resolution. It also increases the horizontal view angle by 33%.

A wide angle adapter just decreases the focal length of a lens without altering the aspect ratio of whats going through it.
 
zureyfa said:
Hi ,

It may be a silly question but what i really did not find the difference between anamorphic adapter and wide angle lens.

What i already know;
panasonic anamorphic adapter can get %33 more view.
Any wide angle lens (for example century optics .6 wide angle lens) you can get %40 more view.

But my question is why panasonic anamorphic adapter is called 16:9 adapter instead of wide angle lens?

Or same question but in different perspective.

can any wide angle lens with the same (%33) factor can be used as 16:9 adapter?

regards,

ergin
Click to expand...

Anamorphic just increases the sides to make it true 16:9 ( it does the same thing as a wide angle lense but just to the sides not up and down)

Wide angle does the sides and top and bottom.
 
Wide angle and Anamorphic are two different animals.
Wide angle = warped.
Anamorphic = compressed.
Wide angle creates a wider field of view that will display properly on a 4:3 aspect ratio display. It works by effectively warping or pulling in the center portion of the image. This effect is most evident in the extreme---see any picture taken with a fisheye lense.
Anamorphic pulls in an extra 33% from the sides (horizontal plane) only, It horizontally compresses the image onto a 4:3 chip. The image will not display properly on a 4:3 aspect ratio display device. A reverse process (electronically or optically) is needed to horizontally stretch the compressed image to 16:9 for proper display.
There are also special focussing considerations when using an anamorphic.
For a better explanation, Barry's book is a great reference. If you dont already have it, you should get it. Highly recommend it.
 
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So if you used a .6 wide angle lens, cropped to 2:35:1, 16:9, 1:85:1... You would get widescreen in that format?

Basically, you can use a wide angle lens with those screen sticker thingies from EVS for your LCD Monitor, crop in post (get the same footage you saw on your LCD monitor) and get a true anamaphoric image... Please let me know if I am clear on that...

Thanks
 
No. Doing it that way would just cut off the top of the original 4:3 footage, costing you a lot of resolution (since you're covering up about 25% of the image). Image produced by the anamorphic adapter will get you a 16:9 ratio without having to crop the image.
 
Yeah, you're literally "squeezing" a 16x9 image into a 4x3 space with the anamorphic lens.
 
I have a question semi related to this topic. Would you guys recommend using a wide angle lens to add scope to certain shots? I can't afford the anamorphic adapter, but was thinking of using the wide angle to open things up a bit.
 
I think a decent wide-angle lense costs about as much as the anamorphic if not more. Cheaper wide angle lenses (like the kind they included in those ebay kits) will badly distort the edge of the image making it unuseable.
 
Not if you use a simple Century Optics adapter. Adapters lose focus after a 30% zoom, but are hi-quality, much cheaper and lighter than converters, which are expensive but maintain focus across the entire zoom range. A DVX 0.6 adapter can be had for $399.:)
 
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